shorthand for "private investigator" (private "i".. get it?). interestingly enough, the pinkerton national detective agency, the first detective agency in the united states, had as its slogan, "we never sleep". they had, as their logo, a big ole eye, symbolizing their vigilance and ever-watchfulness.

the pinkerton national detective agency was founded by allan pinkerton in 1850. encyclopedia.com has this to say about him:

Pinkerton, Allan
1819-84, American detective; b. Scotland. In Chicago he
founded (1850) what became the Pinkerton National
Detective Agency. During the Civil War he directed an
espionage system behind the Confederate lines. His
agency, which solved numerous railroad robberies, also
gathered the evidence that broke up the MOLLY
MAGUIRES in the 1870s. It subsequently became
notorious as a private police force for hire to
management as strikebreakers.

this company is still in existence - "Pinkertons, Inc. is the World Class Enterprise Security Solution for the 21st Century". visit them at www.pinkertons.com.

Private Eye is a rather uncommon Atari 2600 game. You control a detective, on a search for evidence. You are equipped with only a 1937FordModel A (that can jump about 20 feet in the air). You have 3 minutes from the time you leave the precinct to find the "evidence", return the stolen goods, and nab the crook.

This game all boils down to knowing which way to turn at the beginning. You can start out by going either left or right on each level. If you pick the correct direction, then you will win. Otherwise you will run out of time. This game has decent graphics (well at least they are better than Breakout). It is a side scroller, (but you can change direction at any time). Besides collecting the "evidence" and "stolen goods" (which are always right out in the open), you also must avoid such enemies as, potholes, rats, and birds.

You could get a patch from the Activision Club by solving round 3 of this game (this was one of the easier patches to get).

"Sacre bleu! I am the great French private eye Pierre Touche and I need
your help. I've been summoned to capture the ringleader, Henri Le Fiend,
and turn him over to the police. But wait -- we first must find evidence
against him and the stolen property. There are five cases pending, each
with its own statute of limitation. A case is closed when Le Fiend is
apprehended and booked. So hurry! Study the files below, grab your
trenchcoat and meet me at Precinct 2600 -- I'll be waiting for you."

Sleuth wanted! Help Private EyeTouche navigate the city streets, parks,
secret passages, dead-ends and one-ways in search of Henri Le Fiend and
his gang. Evidence and stolen goods are scattered about -- you'll need
to find these, too. Let the map and your memory be your guide. And let
nothing go unnoticed.

This game is valued at around $20 USD. Games with boxes and manuals are worth more.

Famed for its bitingly funny satire, as well as its propensity for getting sued by the famous figures who receive the magazines attention, Private Eye has become a Britishinstitution since it's first issue, which was released in the autumn of 1961.

Private Eye has it's roots further back in history than the Oxford contingent of the early 'Satire Boom' which began at the Edinburgh Festival of 1960, and can probably be traced back to the Shrewsbury School, which was attended by Richard Ingrams and Willie Rushton. During their time there the pair contributed both verse and drawings to the school magazine, 'The Salopian'. Both went their separate ways after they passed their A-Levels, but the idea of a writing for a magazine must have stayed with them and was rekindled when Ingrams and another Old Salopian, Paul Foot, arrived at University College, Oxford in 1958.

The year prior to the pair's arrival at Oxford, Adrian Berry, the son of Lord Hartwell the then owner of The Telegraph started sending in contributions to the collge magazine, but after finding that the regular college press were unwilling to publish such 'close to the bone' material, and the local W H Smith wouldn't stock it, he had started a small humorous magazine, entitled Parson’s Pleasure to give his work an outlet. Berry was approaching his finals, and wanting to hand the editorship over to someone, he became an acquaintance of Paul Foot, who wrote in the Parson’s Pleasure gossip columns. Foot saw the opportunity to revive some of the ideas that he and Ingrams had had at Shrewsbury.

Upon Foot taking over as editor, the style of the magazine changed quite radically. It became a fortnightly paper, in came the letters from fictional correspondents, such as Hubert Drivel, and more cartoons were published all drawn by Rushton, including the now legendary doodle which showed a giraffe standing at a bar, with the caption, 'No, no, I insist - the high-balls are on me'. Despite the new format, Parson's Pleasure was running out of money, and the majority of the writers and illustrators, including Ingrams, Rushton and Foot left to the Balliol publication, Mesopotamia. The Parson's Pleasure team joined up with John Wells, Peter Cook and Christopher Booker, who was to become the first editor of the Eye, and launched the first issue of Private Eye, which soon reached a circulation of 80,000 copies, if you happen to find one of these original copies, they can now be worth up to £1000.

It wasn't a lasting success however, and by 1962, Private Eye found itself in financial difficulties, and had to be bailed out by Peter Cook. Many of its competitors fell by the wayside. The magazine's financial position wasn't aided by the fact that the victims of many of The Eye's send ups were rich industrialists, who often sued them to within an inch of their lives. Of course anyone suing them automatically received even more attention from the wags who wrote the paper, leading to many feuds, most notably, James Goldsmith throughout the 1970's, Robert Maxwell during the 1980's, and Mohammed al-Fayed though the 1990's. The staff seemed to enjoy winding up the rich and powerful, a point highlighted by Richard Ingrams, who claimed that ' My own motto is publish and be sued.'

Not normal worthy of a mention in most publications, the cover of The Eye usually sports a photograph of a recent news event, with subtly ' altered' speech bubbles. The last example I bought had a picture of Colin Powell US Secretary of Defence, and Ariel Sharon, President of Israel shaking hands. The speech bubbles read as Colin Powell saying 'So we've got an agreement?' to which Sharon replied ' Yes, I'm going to ignore you.'

Contents

Featuring Lord Gnome's editorial, normally amongst the most scathing attacks in the issue, this used to be written by Peter Cook, but is now in the capable hands of Ian Hislop.

Classifieds

Most papers' classified sections aren't worth bothering with, but they take on a new lease of life in Private Eye. The funniest section hands down is the now famous Eye Need, where people publish their pleas for cash, with attached account and sorting codes, Eye Love are the often bizarre personals, and Eye Want where you're almost guaranteed to find someone making a Channel 4 documentary on threesomes, or a BBC2 documentary on lost love, so if you're looking for your 15 minutes of fame, this would be a truly appalling place to start.

Celebrating the regular cock-ups made by sports presenters, originally poking fun at David Coleman himself, as he was famous for his gaffes, but now covering any and all of his peers. This is often extended to Warballs after the Afghanistan conflict, and since the death of the Queen Mum Ma'amballs.

A relatively recent addition, this parodies Our Glorious Leader as vicar of St. Albions Parish Church, and skewers much of the political in-fighting and back corridor goings on within the Labour Government. It has recently been featuring message sent in by the Vicars friend, Reverend Dubya Bush from the Church of the Seventh Day Morons in Washington

One of the longest running sections of The Eye, this highlights the disturbing amount of corruption in local government around the county, often stirring up many a shit-storm for those who it catches with their hand in the till.

The Eye is currently entering its fifth decade of existence, under the stewardship of Ian Hislop, who is also a team captain on Have I Got News For You, and is still the home of contemporary British satire.

It was the kind of night that wraps around you like a dark fog, that whirls your coat and hair like an arial whirlpool and dances around the amber streetlamps like mist, the kind that wraps you in its tentacles and goes inside you and fills you up like a milkshake maker fills his glass. It was the kind of night that projects every light and sound and thought through the New York air, the kind of night that sounds like a lone taxi and smells like cheap cigars and tastes like cold hard steel. It was the kind of night I like best.

"Come back when I'm awake." I unlocked the door, stepped inside, managed to find my way through the office to my bedroom, and went to sleep.

I woke to the sun, slicing through the curtains, dancing the cha-cha across my eyelids, and rolled out of bed. The remains of an ancient pastrami sandwich greeted my yet-unfocoused eyes like a bad-breathed Taiwaneese politician greets a small lizard slipping into his sandal. I pulled myself to my feet and wandered off to the bathroom.

I had just finished squeezing the last drops of toothpaste from the tube when an ear-splitting shave-and-a-haircut knock ricocheted off the walls of my apartment. I opened the door.